Dragon and Liberator

"My mask can give us air for six hours," Alison cut him off, sitting down facing the safe door with her knees tucked to her chest. It would be a tight fit, but not too bad. The door's inner plate, she noted, had several small access holes to the lock mechanism that were big enough for her to get a couple of fingers into. "We'll be safe until then, so take your time and pick your moment. Don't try to rescue me—either of you. Understand?"

"Yes," Draycos said reluctantly.

"Good," Alison said. Taneem, she noted uneasily, had gone rigid against her skin. Was the K'da claustrophobic? She hoped not. "Also, don't worry if you can't catch up with us before the six hours run out. Taneem and I will just play it by ear. I can get to the lock from in here, so we won't be stuck."

"Understood," Draycos said, his voice tight but steady. "Good luck."

Alison could hear heavy footsteps now, and the echo of terse commands. Bracing herself, she got a grip on the door and pulled it closed. There was a soft click as the lock reengaged.

And she and Taneem were alone in utter darkness.

"Taneem?" she murmured softly toward her shoulder. "You all right?"

There was no answer. "Taneem?" Alison tried again. "Come on, girl; we've been in worse scrapes than this one."

"Have we?" Taneem whispered back, her voice shaking. "Have we really?"

Alison grimaced. Actually, they probably hadn't. "We're going to be fine," she assured the K'da. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she dug her mascara tube from her kit. "Let's see if we can hear what they're talking about out there."

Unscrewing the end from the tube, she placed it into her ear. The burglar's pickup was designed to let her listen into safes from the outside. There was no reason it shouldn't let her listen the other direction, too. Switching on the microphone half of the tube, she pressed it against the safe wall beside her.

"—Morgan, I tell you," Colonel Frost's voice growled faintly in her ear. "It's exactly the sort of crazy stunt he and that frunging K'da of his would pull."

"Very likely," a second voice answered.

Alison felt a shiver run through her. That voice was very familiar: Arthur Neverlin, once the number-two man at Braxton Universis. The man who, five months ago, had framed Jack for theft and murder and then blackmailed him into helping with his plan to kill Cornelius Braxton and take complete control of the huge corporation.

Only Jack and Draycos had turned the tables on him. They'd saved Braxton's life and sent Neverlin scurrying for the shadows where he'd been lurking ever since.

Which probably meant Neverlin hated Jack as much as Colonel Frost hated Alison.

Alison's father had once told her it was good to have all your enemies grouped together in the same place. At the time, she'd thought it sounded like a reasonable idea. Now, she wasn't so sure.

"Which brings up the question of what he was trying to accomplish," Neverlin continued. "Morgan wouldn't waste his time just trying to tweak us."

"I think it's pretty obvious this is what he was after." There was a sharp rap on the side of the safe. "Question is, did he get in or not?"

"There's one way to find out," Neverlin said. "Unfortunately, since we don't know how Kayna opened the other one, we'll probably destroy it if we try."

A sudden cold chill ran down Alison's back. In her hurry to get out of sight, she'd completely forgotten the fact that the K'da and Shontine had booby-trapped these safes to protect the precious information inside them.

Booby-trapped with a small but powerful bomb, in fact. A bomb that was currently pressed up against the side of Alison's head.

"Yeah." Frost bit out a curse under his breath. "She did something—she must have done something—that the other safecrackers we hired didn't do. But I've been over that recording a hundred times, and for the life of me I can't figure out what it was."

"Yes, she was a very clever little girl, our Alison," Neverlin murmured, his voice even more snakelike than usual. "I do hope we run into her again someday."

"In the meantime, we have to decide what to do about this safe," Frost said. "Do we open it and see if the data diamonds are still there, or not?"

"Not, I think," Neverlin said. "I generally dislike destroying something I might someday find a use for. Besides, even if Morgan has the rendezvous location, there's nothing he can do to stop us. Certainly not without warning."

"If the flaggers you bribed in StarForce stay bribed," Frost countered sourly. "If you ask me, people who are willing to take money to watch your backtrail are just as willing to change sides for a better offer."

Alison grimaced. So Jack's guess had been right. Neverlin had people in high places watching and waiting for Jack and Draycos to surface. If the two of them had gone to StarForce or the Internos government when all this started, as Uncle Virge had urged, they would probably be dead right now.